Rapid application development (RAD) techniques apply as well to developing an e-commerce site as they do to developing internal or production software for sale. This article discusses one specific RAD methodology for developing e-commerce applications: customer-oriented RAD (CoRAD), developed by Cambridge Technology Partners.

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From the author of

For the last ten years, many software projects have incorporated the use of
rapid application development (RAD) methodologies in an effort to
decrease development times. RAD incorporates an umbrella of methodologies based
on spiral, iterative development technologies. RAD techniques range from the
simple use of GUI development tools to quickly build prototypes, to processes
incorporating complete, cross-functional business analysis. Since January 1997,
Cambridge Technology Partners, one of
the early practitioners of RAD, have adapted their methodology to address the
special needs of electronic commerce (e-commerce). Dubbed CoRAD for
customer-oriented RAD, Cambridge's methodology brings together a
unique combination of technical, business, creative, and cognitive disciplines
to implement high-impact, successful e-commerce solutions. If you're
considering building an e-commerce application, CoRAD can help you to avoid the
pitfalls that many early e-commerce sites faced because they concentrated too
narrowly on either the technical or creative side of e-commerce. E-commerce
isn't just about building a web siteit's about building a whole
new business channel.

CoRAD projects consist of five distinct phases:

Strategic planning

Product definition

Product development

Product design

Product delivery

CoRAD treats an e-commerce project as a product because that's how
customers will view it. Successful web sites have to be launched and marketed to
customers, and must provide incentives for customers to try them out, just like
traditional consumer products. Customers will compare the web site against
competitors' sites, judging the usefulness of each. If the site crashes or
takes too long to download, customers will go elsewhere. The role of technical,
business, creative, and cognitive specialists in each phase of the site creation
is described later in this article. Before discussing each phase of the CoRAD
methodology, however, let's spend some time describing why it's needed
in the first place.

Why Another Methodology?

Cambridge first started developing its RAD methodology for developing
client/server solutions in 1991. Over the years, as client/server technologies
matured, Cambridge continued to evolve its RAD model. But Internet
applicationsincluding e-commerce, extranets, online communities,
interactive marketing, and interactive web servicesplace new demands on
software over and above traditional client/server development. The CoRAD
methodology brings together four key disciplines for the rapid development of an
Internet application:

Technical

Business

Cognitive

Creative

Technical Impact

Internet applications and online business have placed new technical demands
on software architecture. Often, it's impossible to accurately predict how
many people will use an Internet site. For example, when Netscape sized its
first web site, it considered the NCSA site from which the original Mosaic web
browser was distributed. At the time, NCSA was receiving 1.5 million hits per
day. Netscape wanted to be able to handle at least three times that load and
designed its site for 5million hits a day. That number was surpassed in
Netscape's first week of operation; the site routinely handles 150 million
or more hits per day, or 100 times the original NCSA reference. While your site
may not see this amount of growth, experts say that Internet architecture should
be capable of scaling to handle 10 times the expected load without reaching an
architectural bottleneck. On an Internet site, you'll have to consider the
scalability of your application software; networking and security software must
also scale commensurately with application usage.

Business Impact

E-commerce applications also have a major business impact. They affect how
you market your products, how you sell, and how you serve your customers. How
will you transition your staff to work in this new environment, or will you need
new people? What new business processes will be needed? Will you need new
channels or partners?

Cognitive and Creative Impact

Finally, the creative and cognitive skills needed for successful Internet
applications are substantially different from traditional internal client/server
applications. No matter how good the technology employed, the business goals of
an e-commerce application cannot be achieved successfully unless the targeted
customers use the solution provided. Traditional client/server application users
used the application because they had no choice. But today's e-commerce
customers typically have several choices. They may choose to use your
interactive solution, a competitor's web site, another traditional channel
offered by your company, or some other option.

The Internet changes the relationship between application and content. To
successfully design for the web, you need to be able to influence your customers
to choose your content from your site. Your e-commerce application is merely the
means for them to do so, rather than an application that forces them to do so.
CoRAD's creative and cognitive disciplines come to play in creating an
application with content that customers will choose to use. This is done using a
five-step process as shown in
Figure 1.